Hey my fellow book enthusiasts!😍 I hope everyone is having a fantastic day and gets to snuggle up with an awesome read today!
I know it’s a Tuesday and you might be thinking “Not her rambling, I’m too exhausted” but “We got this!” We are bad mama jammas and whatever is going on in your life I’m sprinkling some glitter on you because I am just majestic like that! You guys have seen those cute fat fluffy unicorns that are the trend with their majestic ways. That’s it, that’s me! Well if course to make it more like me it better have a supreme pizza 🍕, an assload of books, and is majorly behind on her reviews but you get the picture!😍 No doubt about it, I’m majestic. Now you may think what does that have to do with NetGalley and my ARCs? Well honestly, not a damn thing. I have issues and I’m very random. I frequently burst out with random rambles but my therapist encouraged me to “let it all hang out on my blog or wherever, balls and all!”. Well… she said just be who you are if they don’t like it that’s okay but just be all of you unapologetically but potato/po-TOT-toe. So that’s me a fat fluffy unicorn who’s going to tell you about ARCs, NetGalley and Publication Dates. I completely understand if you don’t trust my credibility and want to exit my page! It’s all good but the information I am sharing comes from personal experience and publishers that I have asked directly about these sort of things! The publicists professionals asked me not to quote them directly because all publishers are different but they said if anyone has any questions they can message me and I can give you their info for any further questions. I talked to professionals with different questions at Penguin Random House and Kensington Books. I am posting based on the information they provided me. Anything that is a mistake is from my translation and not on the publishers I have asked. The choice is yours but I am going to stop running my mouth and get to the topic at hand.
What is NetGalley?
When I was new to blogging and to NetGalley, I had no idea what I was doing. To be honest I’m some ways I still don’t but to make things better I have lots of Books on it! Anyways I had so many questions about NetGalley what is it first of all and I kept seeing everyone post these “Thank yous” to NetGalley so it had to be something good.
NetGalley is a place where you can get free books but you are expected to give an honest review for said books. Everything is electronic at NetGalley. So you can read on your phone, kindle, other ereaders, tablets, and computers. Unfortunately, they do not directly offer print copies but from my experience when I started NetGalley and turning in EGalleys it opened up a lot of opportunities for me. After five months of having NetGalley, I have publishers write me personal e-mails and offer print copies. I also can get the publishers info and send them requests and they send me print copies by seeing how reliable I am on NetGalley.
For Beginners
- You can join NetGalley when your blog has just started.
- You are also able to join NetGalley as a reviewer on Goodreads or another site only. To be honest, you must likely won’t get approved for big titles unless you have shown that you have high credibility, high following or what not though.
- Even as a new blogger or a Goodreads/other Reviewer you have access to the Read Now copies! There is a large selection of “Read Now” books and there not just unknown or books people haven’t heard of.
- I would say currently 1/4 of my NetGalley books are from the “Read Now” selection. So it’s a way to get in the front door and get free ebooks. This also gives you the possible opportunity to meet publishers, authors and/or other book related shenanigans.
- The”Archive Date” is when the publishers take down the title so you are not able to download the title anymore.
- I choose the Kindle option everytime because I don’t have to worry about the title expiring. I found that when I used an epub or pdf format with Aikido that the title was only available for about 60 days.
- If you use other formats besides Kindle, I would suggest going back to the title on NetGalley and re-downloading it before the archive date.
- With kindle format you can have the title in your cloud forever. You can also use Text to Speech! Which I love because it helps me read along with my mild dyslexia and if I need to do something I can play the audio and listen to the TTS while I do daily activities. It’s a very handy thing for people with reading disabilities as well and there is no extra charge like with most audiobooks. The only difference I found is that every once in awhile the digitised voice may say some words funny but overall I love having the kindle format and you can have it on about any device.
- If you would like to use kindle format on any device you have then you can download it for free here:
Amazon.com – Read eBooks using the FREE Kindle Reading App on Most Devices
For my awesome U.K. friends visit: Amazon Kindle App Download For U.K.
*Anyone who is outside U.S. or U.K. can click on any of the links and select their country because I don’t have accounts yet for other locations yet but you are still awesome and count the same!😊*
I have to tell you guys that if you download the kindle app using my link in the pic it helps me as an amazon affiliate but it costs you zip! So it’s a win-win!
- I also have to share because I love free stuff that kindle has thousands of free book offers and you can find new ones daily! I have like 800 titles in my library that are free from kindle! Woot! Sorry back to the topic at hand. I get carried away about free stuff. If its free than its for me! Back to NetGalley!
- Your profile is very important on NetGalley. You would want to list info about you, info about being a professional reader/whatever you do that benefits the reading community (book reviewer, beta reader, media professional, bookseller, educator, librarian and/or associates/assistants)😁📚❤ and your stats.
- If your stats are low and you are new, you can show off other good qualities you posess like examples of your book reviews, lists of your different social medias and share about your passion of reading.
- Where it says company name on your profile, do not leave that section blank! For some reason this gets many bloggers turned down! Your company can be your blog name for example mine says: Touch My Spine Book Reviews. I also added the library I volunteer at and the bookstore I work/volunteer at.
- If you are a part of any associations, it’s very beneficial to add that as well.
There is other questions I have asked publishers here and there over the last two months. The biggest questions that I faced as a newbie and other friends/new bloggers have asked me is..
- When is the best time to turn in our eGalley review for NetGalley?
- Do we need to turn our NetGalley reviews in before publication?
- Is our ratio that important? Will it effect our chance at getting reviews?
So here’s the answers that I received when asking different publishers such as Penguin Random House, Kensington and etc., asking on the NetGalley blog and putting all the information together.
- When to turn in your review depends on the publisher’s preference. If you go to the publisher’s page on NetGalley, you will see a preference section when you click it sometimes it will say the approval preferences and when they expect reviews to be turned in. Go by those guidelines when possible.
- If the publisher’s page does not have their preferences listed you can contact them by looking up the company and you would want to go to the publicity contact for that company. It would look like publicity@entangledteen.com as an example.
- When you cannot and/or do not wish to contact the publisher, from the advice I was given it looks good to post your review around a week or even within the month before the publication date. Anytime before publication or within a week after the publication is the best but if not just do the best you can!😁
- Publishing companies understand shit happens. Now they didn’t say it like that but a publisher completely knows that sometimes people are not able to review the book or that their review is late. It’s Life and Shit Happens! We all have our lives to live outside of the blogosphere.
- So try not to stress yourself if you can’t meet publication and your worries about your reviews are piling up. I know, I know easier said than done! I am guilty of stressing about this myself quite frequently but I want you to remember this whole reviewing books and book blogging shenanigans is supposed to be fun! “Don’t stress, you got this!” Remember you are a Book Reviewing Rock Star!❤😁📚🤓💃
- The preferred ratio for NetGalley is 80%. You want to strive for this ratio but if you are not there don’t fret you can still get good titles at a low percentage. Like I said before, it all depends on the publishers. I have a 60% ratio and I get approved 9 out of 10 times. I’m not saying “screw it, it’s not important”. What I mean is that whatever your ratio may be there is going to be opportunities out there for you. If you don’t want to deal with requests in the beginning, there is always the “Read Now” selection which is pretty darn good at times and I usually can find a few great titles in the “Read Now” section at a given time.😁💯📚
*Couldn’t help myself, I had to add a sexy lady reading to this post!😂*
My Advice About NetGalley to New Users
- I know it’s tempting but when you first start out try not to request 30 titles because you are scared you will be denied and are tempted by all the cover porn and opportunity of free books. I know it’s pretty hard to resist. I did this and ended up with 28 books as a new user with publication dates that are not too far away!😨 Many of users have told me they made the same mistake.
- Try to avoid the addiction of clicking request too much!! I know it’s so hard! I will admit, I am a Netgalley addict and man it can be overwhelming!
- Try and be mindful of the publishing dates and see what best suits your schedule but don’t worry if it’s too much. As I said earlier, all of us are behind at one point or another and publishers understand we are not perfect.
- You can turn your reviews into the publisher through NetGalley and then send all your links later when you get the time or when you schedule your reviews to go live. The reason I mention this is I got this advice from the NetGalley blog and found it really helpful. Sometimes we are freaking because the publication date is around the corner and you don’t want to post all your reviews at once. Well, you can post your reviews on NetGalley and come back and edit your feedback to add your links later at a better date for you.
- Do not stress about the publication dates so much! We can’t be perfect all the time and many authors understand and want there coverage to be spread out. You can always contact them to let them know it will be late if that makes you less stressed!😁
- What counts the most is regardless if your review is late, early or whenever, is that the review is turned in. I was told that when the publicity contacts are viewi ng your profile they just want to see that you are consistently turning them in.
- As long as you are reading and turning in your reviews, everything will be fine and handy dandy!
- You got this and I love seeing everyone’s NetGalley reviews!
Sorry about all that rambling and hope that I made sense! I missed you guys and I am going to try and be more active! This post was mostly done sitting in my drafts and I have been fretting about my reviews so I figured I should post it and take my own advice! I also have to mention as a new member to NetGalley that I wouldn’t have made it through without the help of my bloggy friends Kim and Carrie’s help! They are the bee’s knees and gave me so much support and advice as well!
~Do you have any advice as a veteran user that you would like to add to new NetGalley users or new bloggers who are interested in eARCs? Was this post helpful to any? Do you love NetGalley? Are you interested in joining?
Thanks for reading my post and I look forward to your feedback! I lost someone close to me and have been grieving but I am working on catching up with all my bloggy friends! You guys are the BEST and have missed yoyr faces!
Touch My Spine Book Reviews 
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